Monthly Archives: April 2012

Not a good day for the Thunder, who entered the bottom of the 8th with a 3-1 lead and proceeded to allow New Hampshire to score three runs, including two in the ninth, to walk away with the victory this afternoon. Brett Marshall pitched a pretty good game in his start, lasting 7.2 innings and holding the Fisher Cats to four hits with six strikeouts and no walks, but two of those hits were solo home runs, and he exited with one out remaining to go in the 8th and a 3-2 lead. Francisco Rondon entered the game in relief and promptly walked the first batter he faced, leading to his being removed for Ryan Flannery, who got the Thunder out of the inning with the lead intact. Flannery had less luck in the ninth, however, failing to record a single out before the Fisher Cats scored the winning run.…

It wasn’t all good news tonight for the Yankees, however, as Nick Swisher felt a twinge in his hamstring in the bottom of the third inning, and, after some hemming and hawing, had to be removed in favor of Andruw Jones (who homered in the 8th, incidentally). At the time of writing, there hasn’t been any official word commenting on the severity of the injury, though apparently manager Joe Girardi believes that Swish will not need to go to the DL. Hopefully this isn’t more serious than it seems, though you never want to hear “get an MRI” and “tightness” together in the same sentence. For what it’s worth, the injury didn’t appear to be too bad–Michael Kay and company spent about a minute talking about how it’s better to take people out before minor injuries develop into major ones (thanks, guys)–and Swish seemed more than capable of walking around. We’ll keep you updated as more details become available.

Using the data from Brooks Baseball, the following are Garcia’s pitches and velocity with 2011 listed first and 2012 listed second:

Four-seam fastball – 87.77 (2011), 87.48 (2012)

Two-seam fastball – 87.64, 87.30

Slider: 80.46, 80.89

Curve: 71.63, 72.19

Change: 80.89, 79.97

Splitter: 79.51, 81.00

Unless you want to consider the small hair he is off on his fastballs, Garcia isn’t throwing that much slower than a year ago. And according to the same Brooks Baseball data, his revolutions per minute (RPM) are up on most of his pitches over a year ago. That would seem to bury speculation that there is something wrong physically with Freddy Garcia (unless the Yankees come up with some mystery illness to put him on the DL).

Personally, the problem seems to be mechanical. Of all the data Brooks Baseball provides us, the only real change in anything I see is in Garcia’s vertical release point. Last year, his vertical release point was for his two fastballs and slider were, -1.27, -1.29 and -1.27.…